An independent magazine aimed at bringing the works of the young and talented
to the whole world. Believing in ideas, thoughts and concepts, Garde Magazine
follows the principle of simplicity and honesty.

Founders
Cleo Tse

cleo.tse@gardemagazine.com

Natasha Chan

natasha.chan@gardemagazine.com

Copy Editor
Marie-JosĂŠe Kelly

mariejosee.kelly@gardemagazine.com

Creators
Hanna-Katrina JÄ&#x2122;drosz
Sylvia Moritz

Kylie Chan
Yves Francois

Contributors
David Madsen

david.madsen@gardemagazine.com

Special thanks
Dress In Print

Sophie Traverse

Editorial

It’s been a year. A YEAR.

We can’t really describe how we feel when we realise
Garde Magazine has made it through 12 months. We suppose it’s a mixture between: astonishment, jitter, pride and
bewilderment. But it’s the feeling of euphoria that really
outweighs all the rest. YAY!
The past 12 issues have been filled with nothing
but original creativity. We’ve learned so much about different
types of art, about the artists behind these fantastic works

and the stories that brought them to where they are now.
Thank you so much to everyone who has supported
us – whether you’re a contributor, creator, reader…it doesn’t
matter. You’re all the reason why we’ve made our 12th issue!
To celebrate our anniversary, we’ve got a rather cool (if we
may say so ourselves) surprise for our readers in our next
issue. Keep your eyes peeled for that. There’s only more
excitement and jubilations to come.
This issue is also thrilling of course (as usual). To
give you a hint of the juicy contents: we’ve got a “blue guy”

who does animation and takes inspiration from knowledge-filled elements or when he gets up in the morning and is
in a dreamlike state.
Dress In Print is back with exciting prints to
make sports clothes comfortable, of a high quality and
appealing to the eye all thanks to its new collaboration.
Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got a graphic designer who embraces all flaws and
mistakes and is in love with cityscapes, a photographer who
delicately captures the stories behind photos and an illustrator who draws her feelings and moods, reflecting her personal-

ity in her works.
Our favourite movieholic has also enlightened this
issue with a review of a film under the category of gore â&#x20AC;&#x201C; be
warned, the content can be quite disturbing and you definitely need to be aged 18 for this!

She is an ultra-detailed person whom
you would be amazed at. Her ambition
expands from computer to hands and cityscapes. She is Sylvia Moritz, a graphic design
graduate, but also a printmaker who captures
London, the nature and even the whole
world.

Sylvia has a very strong signature in

coloured in black
and white and cityscapes. Here is her reason: “Architecher works:

my practice. It takes
me time to realise
who I am and what
my strengths are. I have

now accumulated years of work and I notice
that I am influenced as an artist by the place
and environment I reside in,” said Sylvia.

Her creative journey started in
Austria at a young age. As a creator who
had studied in three different countries, she
ture was a subject I always considered study- took the best part of each country and each
ing instead of graphic design. Every building, country has had a great impact on her path
whether it cost £100million or is made of
of creativity.
mud, has a structure, a design, and is beautiful in it’s own right. They’re integral to the
“In Austria I learnt the basics of
shaping of my designs and illustrations.”
design: life and perspective drawing, art
history, colour systems and various designs;
Diversity, Necessity and Capacity are England allowed me to play, experiment with
works all discussing different social themes
new techniques and also handmade techthat the earth is dealing with, such as overde- niques; America was extremely encouraging,
velopment, urban-expansionism and polluvery ambitious. It made me believe I could
tion. The circular shape of works mirrors the become anything I wanted. I was surrounded
shape of the planet.
by highly motivated people and we all shared
the American Dream. Everything felt possible.”
“

My surroundings
take a vital part of

In the generation

Sylvia Moritz - Capacity
The world‘s largest cities today have an average population density of over 25,000 people
per Km2, that’s two people for every square meter. Our ability to cater for this constant
swell of rural-urban migration has now to reach its capacity, and human beings have
built a maze around themselves that they can no longer escape. With trees forever making way for skyscrapers, the planet’s environmental degradation means that pollution
levels have reached similarly dizzying heights to that of the towers we live in.

of technology
and digitalisation, Sylvia has
an open attitude towards
the difference
between computer-generated graphics
and handmade
graphics. Being in-

spired by a Mac computer in
her teenage years, she foresees
the usefulness of computers.
“There will always be
a place for computer-generated graphics. Etching and
screen-printing are wonderful
techniques - their methodology hasn’t changed for years
and doesn’t need to while
computers are evolving. They
are at the forefront of what is

new and will determine faster,
better ways for us to create art
and design in the future.”
Even so, she still has
her preference.

“Printmaking is more instinctive, the
mistakes you
make are irreversible and
become part of
the art. With
graphics, too
many cooks can
spoil the broth,
there’s a lot of
nudging around
and endless perfectionisms be

Sylvia Moritz - Diversity (Close up)
‘Divercity’ depicts points of interest from all 196 countries on Earth. It’s
an architectural assortment of the culturally contrasting. From low-rise
to high-rise, museums to minarets, past desert sands and timeless lands,
through acre woods and city blocks.
Orbiting the border of ‘Divercity’ are the world famous landmarks we all
know and love, but as the eye gravi- tates towards the center, lesser-known,
recherché attractions
unveil themselves to us.
The piece promises that in the story of man-made architecture, our tourist
guides are only chapter one, and that there is fulfilment to be had in having
your head turned by something outstanding that you didn’t expect to see.

Sylvia Moritz - Necessity
Before elevators, climbing trees or hiking mountains were the only ways to see the world at large. Before conveyor belts and tarmac highways we felt grass beneath our feet. We progress with technologies provi- sions, but despite our wires and our networks
we’ve lost contact with the bare necessities of life.

ing applied that dissolve
the fun of making.”

With her delicate drawing techniques, it is inevitable to make ‘mistakes’ since one can never guarantee all strokes made on the paper
are correct. Sylvia transcends
her possible mistakes into a
higher level of creativity.
“I never saw them [mistakes] as a problem. Mistakes make us as people,
and it’s always part of the
art. It’s like if an actor forgets his lines at the theatre
- only he knows his mistake,
and everyone else goes

My art
is generally
very detailed
and very imaginative, so misalong with it.

takes just become the
start of a new element
that I simply hadn’t
foreseen. It’s innovation.”
Sylvia’s next project is launching her
own brand of urban-themed stationery, gifts and
accessories called The City Works. Continuing
her rich, intricately detailed illustrations, the first
collection of the brand ‘Lost in London’ aims to
capture the maze-like nature of the old city.
Expectedly, her dream project is related to
the city too.

I always dreamed of
seeing my cityscapes covering
a large wall in the form of a
mural design, and as we speak I’m cur “

rently working on two separate mural designs for
the University of Arts London and their student
housing buildings. So perhaps this is a dream
that’s going to come true soon!”

Where previous works in the Citysphere series depicted the urban sprawl, ‘Necessity’ turns its attention to the rural sprawl, and
performs the wonderful resilience of the natural world. It reminds us that to ensure a fruitful life for all, seeds must be planted,
and our biodiverse ecosystems preserved. The unquestionable beauty of nature is a necessary yin to our vast industrial yang –
and we mustn’t forget what this planet was before we called it earth.

Let imagination and
memory fly with
discipline

Yves Francois
Animation

For Yves Francois, animation is
the hub of his childhood and
memory. Although he started with illustration and learnt
animation quite late in his
education, his determination
and passion led him to go far in
pursuing his interest.
“I’ve spent my second year
doing a short animated film
at the Royal College of Art.
It was difficult sometimes
given my lack of knowledge

Even
though the
project had
some beginner
mistakes, I was
happy with the
result,” said Yves.
in animation.

It is really easy to find out
there are two elements appearing frequently in Yves’
work: surroundings and the
colour blue. He explained

ing a

that he is borrow

child’s angle
to view things
because it
is fresh and
honest, without too many
stereotypes.
“When I first applied to the
Royal College of Art I was
asked for an identity picture.
I was late with the paperwork
so I just sent a low-resolution
portrait from a web camera
the night before which looked
blue. Afterwards this image was
on my student card and all the
trombinoscope taped on doors.
Some students made fun of
it and called me “blue guy.” I
found it funny and thought of
making a blue character. Since
then I’ve used this colour in
many projects, maybe its part
of my atmosphere now and I
actually don’t really notice it!”
Taking a deeper look at Yves’
works, they look hand-drawn

and like he dedicated a lot of
time to each piece. Although
animation is inevitably correlated to computer graphics and
its process since the tool to link
all pieces together are essential,
Yves has another thought about
it.
“I

didn’t like too much
computer-generated
images at the beginning
because I think computer graphics would
not be strong enough to
show personality. Then
for my animation I started with
computer to save time. The
result looked all right. So now
I would say that I prefer traditional techniques when doing
my research but I like to add
computer generated elements
for a more finalised project.”

Yves starts with the meaning
and ideas behind a project,
and then continues with the
form. He likes to find his work
containing reality and fantasy
elements along the evolution of
the project. “Style is not something you need to work on first,
it just comes little by little when
you keep working.”

Yves Francois - Neighbouring Thoughts
The film deals with a musicians trying to
find back his inspiration. Then the storyline
follows him into his mind, linking his ideas
memories and dreams all together.

About a musician trying to find back his inspiration, linking his ideas, memories and dreams
together, Neighbouring Thoughts is Yves’ final
project. He said it was his “most completed
project.”
One probably could not imagine how long

the seven
minute long animated
project took. It actually took Yves 6 months
to find a storyline, do
research, make a storyboard and production,
which includes animation, sound design and
editing. Some scenes were even shortNeighbouring Thoughts,

ened due to deadline.

Animation is a time
consuming and repetitive medium which demands a lot of effort
in terms of organisa“

tion. One must fix their own deadlines for

each scene in order to make it. It also makes
one feel lonely because one would be fully occupied with it. If I could make it more detailed
and in-depth, I could easily spend another 5
months on it,” said Yves.

“I like
this short moment in
the morning where
you’re waking up but
still out of a dream.
It’s a bit confusing
and you’re making
strange associations
of ideas. I often have inspirational
moments in this way. Reading is
another source of inspiration since I see
what has been done
before me. All elements of good generAs for his inspiration, Yves said,

Yves Francois - Someone

al
them.
knowledge are what alI like both for different
low you to have any ideas reasons.”
Looking forward to the future, Yves has different
in the first place.”
plans such as a comic book and even a full-length
Making use of his illustration experience in animation production, Yves said the way of presentation is
very different: while illustration has to be direct and
straight-forward, animation allows one to develop an
idea although the process is repetitive.

animation movie.

“I wish I could do the movie one but with a big team
“Right now I might say I pre- behind me, so I could be
the director and focus on
fer animation more because
it’s a newer medium for me, the part which interests me
but I know I will come back and leave the boring part to
to illustration soon, so I can’t others!”
choose between

The stories
behind photos
Hanna-Katrina
Jedrosz
Photography

Bleak yet colourful. Near but detached.
Simultenously stark and vague. Hanna-Katrina
Jędrosz’s photography is full of odd contradictions, which might be why they tease your
curiousity so. Satisfyingly, the stories behind
the pictures turn out to be just as interesting as
the works themselves.
Hanna-Katrina’s background is in
European Theatre, but photography nat-

It
may seem like the two are
worlds apart, but theatre
and documentary photography are often hoping to
achieve the same thing to
communicate a story. To
me, clear similarities are
that both practices comment, reflect, respond to
and provoke the world
around them.”
urally found its way into her life. “

Hanna-Katrina’s project ‘I Feel Every
Stone of the Road’ became the catalyst for
going into photography.

I
have always had an
interest in photography before
deciding to make
it a significant
part of my work.
Whilst at drama
school we did
a lot of devised
plays, I found that
I always tended
towards visual
ideas. My note
“

books

Hanna-Katrina Jędrosz - I Feel Every Stone Of The Road
An installation piece inspired by the diary my Polish grandmother wrote after the
Warsaw Uprising of 1944 when she was held as a prisoner of war by the Nazis. She
was twenty at the time and wrote the diary whilst taken from camp to camp across
Poland and Germany, before being liberated in the Spring of 1945. My installation
presented photographs taken on the sites of the prisoner of war camps projected into
the middle of a black box space, and accompanied by an audio track of me speaking
the words of her diary (in English) combined with writing I had done when I retraced her route. The line that became the title for the project: “Through thin and torn
soles of my shoes I feel every stone of the road.”

would
be full of
image cuttings
and photographs, the
text would come later. When
I discovered a diary that my Polish
grandmother had kept whilst held
as a prisoner of war at the age of
twenty after the Warsaw Uprising,
an idea kind of unfolded out in
front of me.”
At this time, Hanna-Katrina was looking for a Masters
degree. Having seen several memorable graduation shows at the
Photojournalism and Documentary Photography course at the London College of Communication,
she decided to take photography
to the forefront of her work. She
would use the course assignments
as a part of the photographic
investigations her grandmother’s
diary had sparked.
“I found the diary in a box
in the attic at my father’s house in
West Yorkshire, nearly a decade
after my grandmother died. It was
written in Polish (which sadly I do

not
speak
nor read),
but it felt like an
opportunity had been

It was
in 2011, around
the same time as
the London Riots
and what came
to be known
as the Arab
Spring, and
the ideas
of revolution
and
placed in my hands.

Hanna-Katrina Jędrosz - I Feel Every Stone Of The Road

uprising that were apparent
in her writing (and in the
stories she had told me as a
child about the Warsaw Uprising) felt very timely and
relevant.”

The work was exhibited in POSK Gallery, a
Polish cultural hub in London, and Hanna-Katrina
feels the biggest achievement of the work is the
response she recieved from many visitors.
“Sometimes this would be because they
too had a grandparent or parent who had fought
in the same war, sometimes in Warsaw, or they
would have no literal connection to the project but had recognised something in it that they
identified with and felt it was important to tell me.
These were people of all ages from many different

The stories in the diary lead to a photographic journey spanning three years. Travels to
backgrounds.
and photographs of the places mentioned in the
diary, sometimes completely transformed and
sometimes eerily recognisable, were ultimately compiled into an installation where the photographs
were shown along with excerpts from the diary, as
well as Hanna-Katrina’s own travel notes from the
project, read aloud by Hanna-Katrina herself.

My grandmother was
someone who was very generous with and interested in
people, so it seemed appropriate that her story should

instigate people returning to
me with their own stories.”
To Hanna-Katrina, this project hasn’t really
ended. If possible, she would like to present the
work as a book, where parts of the original diary
can be shown alongside the photographs and with
the audio track accompanying on a CD.
For her upcoming project, Hanna-Katrina
hopes to provoke the same responses and conversations – this time on the subject of severely
disabled people.
Recognising that, like in theatre, listening
is one of the fundamental acts of photography,
Hanna-Katrina’s answer to what her ultimate goal
would be is admirably low-key.

It would be nice
to answer this question
with something imaginative, but I’m going to say
something functional. My
ultimate goal is simply to
be able to keep working,
to earn a living, to continue to communicate
and have conversations.”
“

Hanna-Katrina Jędrosz - I Feel Every Stone Of The Road

Hanna-Katrina JÄ&#x2122;drosz - Promenade
I keep returning to is those surrounding the shifting
notions of Girl Culture. This is taking shape as a combination of candid documentary photography and portrait
series.

A means of expressing
the inner self
Kylie Chan
Illustration

As a kid, Kylie Chan read lots
of Japanese comics. She started developing her drawing techniques based on
these and turned her fantasy dreams into
stories. In one of these stories she had a
superpower; in another, she could save
the world. What couldn’t be real and what
she couldn’t have were placed into comics.
As Kylie grew older however, her
drawings became a form of emotional

of my drawings are from
my real moods and feelings (most of them are
sad),” she said. “I draw
what I know, what I see all from real life.”

Drawing helps Kylie express and

“Now enables her to record her experiences not
I’m not as creative any- only for herself, but for viewers to get to
know her and understand her. “I like
more, there’s less fantasy
to record everything about
and more reality. Most
myself – my feelings, my
release to help her feel better.

Kylie Chan - Chloe (zine)
A story about a girl called
Chloe, she love everything is
spring green.

life
in general, my experiences in order to
let people know more
about my real self,”

“Maybe because I’m not a
talkative person
and not good at
writing, drawing can help me
communicate
with peo-

she said.

ple.”
Kylie describes herself as lazy, messy and a troublemaker, but people think she’s
much sweeter than this view of
herself. She said people think she’s
a shy, careful and friendly girl (although her best friends think she’s
evil!)

Born and bred in Hong
Kong, Kylie attended school in
the pearl of the orient before she
went to London to study at the
Camberwell College of Arts. She
is currently a part-time worker in a
gallery and a freelance illustrator.
A lot of Kylie’s works focus
on figures of women, which she
says is actually her own shadow.

Kylie Chan - Are You Ready
I just love drawing people doing exercises, especially swimming, bicycle,
good to see the human wearing lesser clothes (can see the body shape/
muscle) with movements and become a picture. It looks funny.

Drawing helps her be
true and real and
it is honest expression. “Some-

times, even if you
are talking with my
real person, I am not
showing the real,
true and whole me,”

them
because
I want people to buy
and keep my works easily and
send them around the world,”
she said. Her zines are currently being sold in Japan, Taiwan,
China and Hong Kong’s Odd
One Out Gallery. Also a lover
and collector of badges, she has
made her own collection, which is
selling in Kubrick Hong Kong.

As for how she goes
about her work, Kylie admits
she has no patience. “I won’t do
she said. It is much easier for her sketches before I start drawing
to draw and convey her true self and I get bored easily so I usually
on paper rather than in person.
just draw directly and quickly. I
never do the same drawing twice,”
Kylie makes zines filled
she said. She mainly draws at
with illustrations. “I home about mid-night because
made she said she has more con

centration at this hour.
She uses a rOtring pigment ink pen, Chinese brush and Chinese ink (the
latter which is her favourite) to complete her works. Upon completion of her
drawings, she will scan them into her computer to keep a record of it.

When Kylie draws, she admits she can
make mistakes but she embraces them
and realises that her final outcome is usually better
than she expected. She

also mainly creates monochrome illustrations â&#x20AC;&#x201C; these take her about half an
hour to complete. Kylie said she only uses
colour when she does magazine freelance jobs
or is working with Photoshop.

Talking about the future, Kylie hopes for several

â&#x20AC;&#x153;I hope my drawings can be lazier â&#x20AC;&#x201C; like simple line drawings but at
the same time can explain
the story behind

(very possible) things:

it
so that people will
easily understand it
and everyone can
read it,” she said. “I also

hope that when people
talk about my zines, they’ll
think about me immediately.”

Kylie is working on a new collection for her
zine, which are about one girl with one colour and her own story. Her first collection is called Chloe, which is all in the
theme of green. The next one she said
for example could be called Lucy in
the theme of purple. “Hopefully

when the reader collects the
whole series it will look very
colourful on the bookshelf.”

What is it...

Silk
screen
printing
101

We know
who she
is...

but what are
these...?

Creative Happening3

When fairytales
meet prints

Dress In Print
Collaboration
With Sophie
Traverse

Left: Sophie Traverse // Right: Tania Cheung

In an earlier issue of Garde Magazine, we featured an independent fashion print designer, Tania
Cheung, with her brand: Dress
In Print. Now collaborating with
the multi-disciplinary creative,
Sophie Traverse, a colourful and
sportive series is born.
Garde Magazine talked to the
creative couple for further wearable creative inspiration.
G: Garde Magazine / T: Tania / S:
Sophie
G: How do you two know each

other?
T: I came across Sophie’s works
one year ago in 2014 on Instagram and her blog. After that I
decided to get in touch with her
and propose a collaboration with
Dress In Print.
G: How did you two confirm
the direction of the collaboration?
T: Sophie’s black and white illustration caught my eyes back then.
Coincidently those illustrations
were inspired by fairy tales such
as “The Red Shoes,” “The Devil
with Three Golden Hair” and

“The Little Match Girl,” so as my
previous collection.
S: I have never worked on collaboration before. Tania approached
me with the idea of creating
illustrations. I thought it would
be such a growing and interesting
opportunity so I accepted right
away.
G: Why is this collaboration
focused on sportswear?
T: I am a very sportive person
and so are my friends. We are
interested in all kinds of sports
such as dancing, fitness, cycling
and hiking, etc. Yet it is very dif-

ficult for us to find good fittings and nice designs
of sportswear that has to be made of breathable
materials and flattening fit to bodies. We

realised that the easier and simpler
the design and materials, the harder to be found. Therefore, I decided to play around with prints on
workout clothing while keeping
the materials to the highest standard in order to motivate female
consumers to work out and sweat
in style.
G: What is the most interesting conversation
between you two during the creative process?

We took some time to
discover each other’s
artistic past and how
we found our love in
what we do. In short, we have to
T:

know more about each other for collaboration. We
have exchanged styles and techniques that we can
illustrate and produce together. It was really interesting to find out how Sophie began her drawing
journey with daily sketches then gradually developed into keeping an art journal on her blog. Our
conversations are always about “how to generate

prints with Sophie’s styles.”
G: Are there any arguments/disagreement?

Since we have diverse
domain knowledge and
style in art, we have to
communicate constantly throughout the design development process in order to create
an outcome that would
T:

Inspiration from fairytales for the Collaboraton by Sophir Traverse

that were difficult to be practiced in reality?
Any examples?
T: Sophie’s style is very unique and the reason in
submitting as much works as possible is to have
sufficient raw materials to generate the most elite
print style. I enjoy working with all of her original
works!

be happy to the market
and both of us. There weren’t

any arguments because that is the whole point of
Dress In Print’s ethos in crossover, to mix different
elements in order to generate a unique art product.
S: We didn’t have any issues concerning the progress of the project. At times I felt a little pressured
since I wanted to do great and Tania wanted to get
a certain number of illustrations to choose from.
But in the end I delivered all the illustrations in
time.
G: For Tanis: did Sophie bring up some ideas

G: For Sophie: did Tania allow you to create
freely or had she given you particular restrictions/rules?
S: Not really, she did give me clear directions, as
for the illustrations had to be inspired by these
three particular fairy tales, as well as the number of
drawings I had to create. I also had a deadline, of
course.
G: What is the biggest difficulty to collaborate
between two creators?
S: We didn’t have any difficulties understanding
each other in that aspect. Since we do very different things, we both felt to create what we wanted
to, and express ourselves freely.
T: Aside from the beginning where I have to explain how Dress In Print’s crossover works (since
it is a new concept), the collaboration process was
pretty inspiring and joyful!

G: Would you two have a chance to collaborate
again?
S: Yes, we have to because Tania still has a
lot of ideas and print designs that she wanted to develop through Sophieâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s drawings.

There are lots
of possibilities
pending.
G: Any tips for creators who are interested in
collaborating?

To make a great collaboration, you need to be able
to communicate well to the
other one, as much as posS+T:

sible. Dissatisfactions come
from not understanding the
othersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; point of view, so the
important thing is to express
your ideas and motivate other
artists. Then you can come up
with results that will inspire
both parts.

Warning

Explicit
coming u

t graphics
up
If you are not interested
in a movie review of zombi2, then you have finished reading this magazine. Thank you very much!

Zombi 2 is an Italian exploitation
film from 1979 and directed by
Lucio Fulci. This original title was
given not because it was an official
sequel to Zombi, but to cash in on
George A. Romeros’ Dawn of the
Dead, which was released in Italy
the year prior to great commercial success under the title Zombi.
Because of its title, the film has a
reputation of being a cheap knockoff of Romero’s instant classic,
although the people who gave it
this reputation probably never saw

briefly explain what an exploitation
film is. They are a very broad genre
of cheaply made, violent genre
films, mostly horror and action,
aimed at teenagers and blue collar
workers. They were especially popular in the 1960’s to the late 1980’s
but also exist in today’s market
often in the form of movies paying
homage to the old films of the exploitation genre such as Grindhouse
(2007), Machete (2010) and Hostel
(2005).

the damn thing. In

It should be stated that as is the case

truth, the
two films have very
little in common with
one another other than
sharing genre and of
course the main antagonists, the zombies.
Before we go any further, let me

Zombi 2 is an incredibly
graphic film, so violent in fact that it
earned its director the
nickname ‘The godfather of gore.’ It contains
with most of its peers,

everything from prolonged scenes

of cannibalism, eye puncturing,
throats getting ripped out to
heads getting bashed in. These
scenes of extreme violence is
what the film is most fondly
remembered for by its avid fans
although it is certainly not the
only thing the film has going for
it, as I will explain in this article.
Zombi 2 follows four Americans, a journalist named Peter
West, Anne Bowles and a couple

Susan Barett and Brian Hull,
who travel to the small island
Matul, located in the Antillies to
track down Annes’ father, who at
the start of the movie has been
missing for months. On Matul
they encounter Dr. Menard who
happens to be the island’s only
remaining white man. He explains to his guests that the dead
has come back to life to eat the
living. From there it’s a pretty
standard zombie affair. The four

main characters are killed one
by one in brutal encounters with
the zombies until a few survivors
manage to escape after a final
siege in an abandoned church.
The film does have several
idiosyncrasies that makes it
unique compared to its American counterpart, Dawn of the
Dead. First and foremost

the film’s setting differs
wildly from that of Dawn

of the Dead or other contemporary American produced zombie films. While

the latter usually takes place in
an urban environment, Zombi
2 takes place on a remote island
complete with long forgotten
cemeteries, run down churches
and zombie infested bungalows.
The zombies are also not white
as they are in American zombie
films, but instead black natives
from the island and conquistado-

res - the Spanish who in the past
came to the Caribbean Islands to
colonise islands like Matul. While
this idiosyncrasy is not immediately significant, upon further
analysis of the film, it becomes
one of the more interesting aspects of the film.
See the zombies in Zombi 2 are
a direct response to the zombie’s
original, racist point of origin.
The zombie was in the West

introduced as a form of exotic
‘boogey-man’ who was depicted
in extremely fictionalised travelogues such as William Seabrook’s
The Magic Island from 1929.

This representation
was used as a vindication of white imperialism, as the colonised
were seen as pagan sub
humans, which justified

the complete domination over them.
Some critics of the film have
accused it of being racist because
of this depiction. These critics
state that the zombies in Zombi
2 represent immigrants from
other countries coming to the
West by posing a similar threat as
the zombies - that their culture is
incompatible with ours, that they
should be seen as violent invaders and that they are naturally
hostile towards us.
Another interpretation of the
zombies in Zombi 2 is that they

represent not immigrants, but
the oppressed, colonised nativeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
weapon against the white invaders. The white protagonists of
Zombi 2 are killed with the same
violence and gruesome mutilation, which laid the foundation
for a dominant, white society, in
part built on resources pillaged
from colonised countries and
natives forced into slave labor.

In other words the film
does not take the side of
the group of white protagonists fighting against
an unknown force of

animalistic monsters summoned by the vile and
inhuman locals, nor do the
zombies represent a racist
and irrational fear of foreigners immigrating to the
West. Instead, the zombies
can be seen as a representation of the discontent
shown by the colonised
natives towards the West,

in a literal sense buried, but not
forgotten. Taking this interpretation of the zombies in Zombi 2 a
step further, the specific inclusion of a conquistador zombie

could represent white guilt back
from the past to haunt its forbears.
With this said however, there are
several technical aspects inherent to this specific genre that
I could imagine would make a
film such as Zombi 2 hard to

post filming. This was a

widespread technique used in
exploitation films made outside
of the US both because the
intended audience was often
English-speaking and most of
the actors werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t, and it kept
production costs to a minimum.
Another issue with the film is

result the dialogue
is in general pretty
stiff and atrocious.
Whereas the dialogue is bad
and the dubbed sound effects

the rest
that the script was
dubbed soundtrack obviously written of the technical
aspects of Zomand voice over,
in Italian, and then
meaning that every
bi 2 are an abhastily
translated
sound you hear in
solute marvel to
the movie was added to English. As a
sit through. First of all is the

are distracting,

behold. Most notably are
the practical effects used in the

special
make-up
and effect
wizard Gianneto De
Rosso
film made by

. Both the
zombies themselves and the way in
which they kill the protagonists are
artistically striking and inventive.
These effects are further enhanced

by a unique soundtrack inspired
by progressive rock of the 1970â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
and a fantastic cinematography
which both takes clues from the
slasher genre with the a lot of
point-of-view camera settings and
the spaghetti western genre with its
many extreme close-ups of charactersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; eyes, smoking gun barrels and
open flesh wounds. These factors
make Zombi 2 an incredible visual
experience, more than a strong
narrative story thereby diminishing the importance of the awful
dialogue.

While Zombi 2
certainly has its
audience, it is a
film that is often looked down

upon, not being considered
to have any cinematic value
outside of its initial shock
value. However, while the origin and intent

the cinematic understanding, memorable scenes, rich thematic
nature and unique stylistic
choices both in terms of cineof this film is certainly exploitative,

matography and music makes
it worthwhile of the attention
of any fan of cinema, not just
gore hounds such as myself. And
if that doesn’t sell you, there’s a scene in the film
featuring a real life shark fighting off a zombie.